Mute City - in the style of Mario Kart 8 / Smash Bros. Melee (Remastered)

[LongBoxofChocolate]

So we finally loaded the project back up and gave it a fresh coat of paint. I think it's a substantial improvement.

OP:

Hey everyone, this is a track my band submitted for judging early June.  Since it's likely we won't hear back for several more weeks (months?), I was hoping to gather some feedback so that we can further improve our sound moving forward.  As with all of our completed tracks to date, we have used as many live instruments as possible and all solos are improvised.

Source tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HidFV5XLugs

original music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLvjZOAmmO4

Edited February 8, 2016 by LongBoxofChocolate
embedded the remaster

[LongBoxofChocolate]

Bump

[Gario]

MOD REVIEW

Mmm, well you certainly have a fun style that I can get behind. The instruments and such are just so... eclectic, yet it all sounds pretty good together. The arrangement is really fun and well put together, so I think you pass quite well, in that regard.

The performances are pretty darn good. I think one thing that might make this a "RESUB" is the mixing. A lot of instruments just jump out too much in comparison to the rest of the instruments. The sax is a particularly guilty culprit of this. If that is brought down a little bit I think you could make the rest of the track go up, which would give this track a more full sound overall.

The drums also sound a little muddy, too, like the recording couldn't handle the crash very well with the other instruments. That might just be me, though.

I think this has a decent shot at the panel, though, since you've already submit it. Good luck!

[LongBoxofChocolate]

Thanks for being so prompt!  I'll pass this along to the others to see what they think.

 

 

 

The drums also sound a little muddy, too, like the recording couldn't handle the crash very well with the other instruments.

 

We actually had a lot of problems with this...earlier bounces sounded like the compressor was swallowing the entire track in that chorus section.  I think we managed to salvage most of it this time, but we still seem to have trouble keeping the sound intact when transitioning from studio-quality monitors to normal computer speakers and headphones.  Can you offer any advice for dealing with that specifically?

[Gario]

Well, for the issue that I brought up (it particularly pertains to the crashes), a multiple microphone setup would allow you to balance the crashes a bit easier in comparison to the rest of the drums, allowing for you to make the volume levels work as well as possible wherever you need it to. You might already have a setup like that, in which case the only other thing I could suggest would be to record the crashes as dry as possible. Which, again, I think you already have down, considering the rest of the mix.

It's not too glaring an issue, so if what you said is true and you were trying to recover from recording artifacts then I think you actually did a pretty good job.

[LongBoxofChocolate]

bumping for the revised version on soundcloud

[Gario]

Mmm... I like this revision. It's smooth and clean as hell, here. As presented here it would most likely be a pass on the panel. I will say that the bass end is a little low throughout, but overall that's not too big of a deal considering how clear everything else is. Pass or resub, you should certainly give the judges this version of the track. I don't think you can switch out a track when it's already been submit, so you'll likely need to give the judges this version once your older version gets through... Unless you use something like Box.net to host, in which you sneakily switch the source before they download it, mwahaha... Er, don't tell them my sneaky secrets...

Great work on it, I think it sounds great.